The present invention relates to a device and a method for producing skinless sausages by the use of molds or forms into which the sausage meat is introduced.
Various methods and machines for the manufacture of skinless sausages are already known. In one such method, described in West German Provisional Pat. No. 1,226,866 and U.S. Pat. No. 2,623,451, the sausage meat is first filled into sausage casings, smoked and boiled, and thereupon the sausage casing is removed. While the disadvantage of the tough sausage casing which is undesirable for eating is eliminated by this method, the other disadvantages still remain, namely the cost of producing the sausage casing, the halts in production due to the limited length of the casing, and the interruptions because of accidential "burstings" of the casing. In addition to this, there is a further expense for equipment and time for the subsequent removal of the sausage casing.
Other known methods operate without such auxiliary sausage casings. Thus, from West German Provisional Pat. No. 1,267,526 it is known to push the sausage meat continuously into or through a forming device in which the meat is coagulated in whole or in part under the action of heat. At the end of the forming device the sausage strand is divided by a cutting apparatus into individual sausages. Due to the required heating time, it is necessary, in order to achieve an economical rate, that the device for producing the sausage be of very large dimensions. Furthermore, upon pushing the sausage meat through the casing, undesirable changes in the meat take place. Furthermore, cutting the previously coagulated sausage strand into individual sections of sausage having straight ends results in a product which is not popular with the consumers.
In another method known from West German Unexamined Application for Patent No. 28 39 772, "skinless" sausages are produced by applying onto the sausage meat a binding agent in order to form an artificial skin. Such sausages, however, do not actually fall within the type with which this invention is concerned.
At an early data, attempts were made to fill the sausage meat into molds and retain them in the molds at least until the coagulation step. In one older method of this type pursuant to U.S. Pat. No. 1,009,953, a hollow cylindrical mold is filled with sausage meat and then sealed at both ends. The mold is then placed for a short time in a hot-water bath so that the outer layer of the sausage can coagulate. The mold is then opened and the skinless sausage ejected. This is a method for purely manual production of sausage. The method is very expensive and not suitable for mass production.
For the industrial production of skinless sausages in larger numbers by means of molds, a machine in accordance with U.S. Pat. No. 1,925,157, for instance, is more suitable. This machine has a molding or forming device which is provided with a plurality of casings arranged in fixed positions. In order to produce the sausage, the forming device is closed at one end and then connected to a filling apparatus. The sausage meat is pushed simultaneously into all the casings thereby producing raw sausages with compacted meat. The forming device is then disconnected from the filling apparatus and opened so that the preformed sausages can be ejected and treated further.
Another similar method using a molding device is known from West German Unexamined Application for Patent No. 25 23 506. A plurality of elongated casings are linked close together to form an endless chain. The casings are provided with removable end closures in order to impart the desired roundness to the ends of the sausages. Furthermore, the casings also have removable caps for the closing of the inlet openings. The casings fastened to the chain are conducted past various treatment stations which contain the following means:
means for filling the molds with sausage meat; means for applying the end enclosures; means for applying the caps to the closures; means for cooking and boiling the sausages in the casings; means for removing the caps and closures; means for removing the cooked or boiled sausages from the molds. The molds with their caps and closures are expensive and the method of production is costly.
In U.S. Pat. No. 994,714 a plurality of casings are fastened in radial groups to a wheel, the axes of the tubes being aligned parallel to the axis of the wheel. Upon the stepwise rotation of the wheel, the casings arrive at different stations. In this case also, the sausage which has been introduced into the casings is boiled within the casings. For this purpose, the lower part of the vertically arranged wheel dips into a bath of hot water. The casings employed are closed at both ends.
The machine in accordance with U.S. Pat. No. 2,897,745 is of a type similar to that of U.S. Pat. No. 994,714. The casings are fastened vertically on a horizontal turntable and are heated electrically after filling. For cooking, the casings are closed, the closure pins being pressed under spring action against the ends of the casings. In this way, a uniform constant pressing of the meat is obtained.
All the known methods and machines for the production of skinless sausages which use molds or forms into which the sausage meat is introduced have various disadvantages. Since the molds are arranged in special mold devices, the machines together with the treatment stations must be adapted to these mold devices, which leads to a complicated and expensive construction. The dimensions of the mold devices are set for a given type of sausage and the size of the sausage, as a rule, cannot be easily changed. The rate of production is also substantially determined by the configuration of the machine. Furthermore, it is not possible to replace readily the individual molds in order to produce other types of sausage. Summarizing, it may be stated that the flexibility and degree of freedom of the known methods and machines are very limited.
The object of the present invention is to provide a method for the production of skinless sausages which avoids these disadvantages. By means of the present invention, it will be possible to produce the sausages in a practical and simple manner, with maximum flexibility in the handling of the molds.